Petal's Alien
by PencilGuardian
Summary: Gwen receives an anonymous photo of an alien and decides to investigate.
1. The Photo

Gwen walked into the diner, checking her watch. Five minutes late. She looked around. Though she'd never been here before, the place had the same familiar feel as every other dingy little diner she'd ever been in, the same stale smells and collection of cracked vinyl booths and wobbly tables found in these sorts of places. A pair of large men sat in stools by the counter, and even their appearance was familiar, that world-weary, gone-thirteen-rounds-with-life sort that Gwen usually saw brought into the station this time of night for being drunk and disorderly. Gwen pulled out the folded scrap of paper in her pocket and studied the delicately penciled curlique that simply stated a place and time. She doubted that it had been written by either of the barflies.

"They didn't leave a name or number or anything?" Jack had asked, when Gwen had showed him the slip of paper that morning.

"Nothing," Gwen confirmed, handing him the envelope it had come in, "except this."

Jack took the envelope and opened it, pulling out a Polaroid. He'd studied it, frowning in surprise. "Talk about a mug shot."

"I already had Tosh examine it, and she thinks its genuine. It's an alien," Gwen had added, for no other reason than to affirm to her boss that she had accepted the facts.

"It is that. Definitely looking worse for wear."

That was putting it mildly, in Gwen's opinion. The face in the photo was only barely recognisable as such, with both eyes swollen shut between bony cheek ridges and a massive head crest which was severely cracked and dented. The whole head seemed badly bent out of shape. But what had immediately struck Gwen about the photo was in the upper right corner, where a human hand was poised with a bit of blue terrycloth towel, as if preparing to dab at the creature's wounds.

"Tosh couldn't identify the species," Gwen added hopefully.

"Hmm. There's something sort of familiar about it, but..." Jack shook his head and slipped the photo back into the envelope. He turned it over. "No return address and no postage, I see."

"I found it pushed through my letterbox this morning. Whoever sent it knows who I am, Jack."

Jack picked up the scrap of paper and read it again. "Someone who found an alien, and wants to talk to you about it tonight at a diner, but is too paranoid to give you any clue about who they are."

Gwen studied Jack's relaxed posture as he slouched on top of his desk. He didn't look nearly as concerned about this as Gwen felt. She'd been looking over her shoulder all the way to work this morning. "What do you think we should do about it?"

Jack put the paper back in the envelope, and handed it towards Gwen. "I think you should do it."

That wasn't the answer she'd been hoping to hear. "What?"

"Normally we're twisting arms and breaking laws to find out stuff like this. This time somebody's reaching out to us with it. We'd be idiots not to take advantage of that," Jack had explained.

"And what if that's what they're counting on? What if it's a trap or something?"

Jack smirked. "With your track record, I'd bet it was a hoax, first."

Gwen still hadn't lived down the 'Eugene incident' (as everyone else had taken to calling it) and it had only strengthened her reputation as the bleeding heart of Torchwood. Still, she refused to consider open-mindedness and compassion as weaknesses, and despite his teasing, Gwen knew Jack didn't, either.

So here she was, standing inside a seedy little diner, holding a scrap of paper and making damn sure she knew where all the exits were, just in case. That was how she finally spotted the likely author of the note, curled up tightly against the wall in a back booth.

Taking a deep breath, Gwen walked over to the booth and dropped the note on the table. "Did you write this?" she asked in her most official-sounding tone of voice.

The tiny slip of a woman, drowning in an oversized woolly sweater and cradling a mug of coffee, timidly pulled the note towards herself with a fingertip. She cast a furtive glance up at Gwen from beneath a tattered fishing cap and nodded nervously. Then she started to speak, but her voice was so soft that Gwen couldn't make it out.

"Sorry?" Gwen asked, leaning in.

"So you got the picture, then?" the tiny woman repeated, barely any louder.

Noticing that the barflies had begun to take notice of her, Gwen slid into the seat opposite the tiny woman. "Yes. Why did you send it to me?"

The tiny woman clutched at her mug as if it were a security blanket and tried to curl up even tighter into the corner of the booth, as if she were attempting to melt into the very wall itself. "Sorry. I-I didn't know who else to go to. You're not going to arrest and brainwash me, are you?"

Gwen was slightly dumbfounded by the woman's genuinely fearful eyes. "What? No, of course not. I don't even know what this is about." She reached into her pocket and pulled out the photo. She slid it across the table so the woman could see it. "What is this?"

Suddenly, the woman's large eyes were brimming with tears and she struggled to stop a sob from shaking her heavily swaddled frame.

Startled, Gwen reached out to take her hand reassuringly. "It's alright. What's your name?"

The woman swallowed and composed herself as well as she could. "P-Petal Sheppard." She touched the photo with a trembling fingertip. "And that's Pelgas."

Gwen studied Petal's anguished face for a moment as she looked at the photograph. "Okay, Petal," she said gently, "My name is Gwen. Why don't you start at the beginning for me?"

Petal nodded and took a swig from her mug. "Well, I guess it all started on Christmas day."


	2. Petal's Christmas

-o0o-

"Come on, Petal! You're being ridiculous!"

"No," she snapped, adjusting the fit of her tinfoil hat, "You're staying right there where I can keep an eye on you."

Trevor squirmed in his restraints. "This is absurd!"

"Too right! Giant spaceship over head, then you climbing on top of the garden wall like some sort of zombie, what were you thinking, Trev? I'm not taking any chances!" Petal wrapped a final loop of duct tape around him, securing her brother—and his fuzzy dressing gown—to the chair, finishing the job by plunking a tinfoil hat on his head.

"Petal, honestly! You really think tinfoil's gonna help?"

"I didn't go climbing the garden wall, did I? Face it, I was right this time."

Trevor rolled his eyes. "So what? Even a broken clock is right twice a day. It's a signal hijacking, Petal. It's another hoax, just like that crash into Big Ben. You'll see."

Petal was unconvinced. "If it was a hoax, why'd they blow up Downing Street, then? There's things going on out there, Trev. Weird, alien things they don't want us knowing about. I'm sorry you're too thick to see the truth."

Petal was about to remind her addled brother of that incident with the shop dummies, when there was suddenly a mighty crash in the garden. She yelped in terror and leapt behind Trevor's chair, shielding herself.

"What the hell was that?!" Trevor exclaimed.

"They've landed!" Petal shrieked, cursing herself for not forcing Trevor to wear the tin hat earlier on. The aliens had probably already locked onto every house where someone had gone wall-climbing-zombie and were invading there first.

"Get hold of yourself. I think something just fell. Un-tape me and I'll go see what it was."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Petal retorted sharply, still huddled safely behind him.

"Yes."

Petal stared around his chair, to the French doors that led out into the back garden. They were mud-splattered from whatever had just landed out there. The choices were frighteningly diverse. "It could be anything. A bomb, or a robot probe or a piece of the spaceship falling off—"

"Then go have a look."

"It could be dangerous!"

"Then let _me_ go have a look."

"That could be just what they want us to do."

"Petal! Stop being strange and go see what fell into the bloody garden!" Trevor finally demanded.

Petal hesitated. "We'll go together and look," she decided, tearing Trevor's duct tape restraints.

He stood up and immediately crumpled his tinfoil hat into a ball. He tossed it straight at Petal's head. "I think the only weird alien thing round here is you," he grumbled, marching to the French doors and yanking them open.

"Trev, wait!" Petal squeaked.

"Oh my—!" Trevor froze in the doorway, mouth agape.

"What?" Petal queried (still safely behind the chair).

Trevor stared out for a few seconds longer, then quickly slammed the doors shut again and joined Petal behind the chair.

"What was it?!" she demanded.

Trevor stared past her, wild-eyed. Petal shook him roughly. Finally blinking, Trevor swatted her hands away. "It—there's…" Looking at Petal again, he suddenly swiped her tinfoil hat and plunked it onto his own head. "An alien crashed into the garden!"


	3. The Alien in the Garden

"Crashed, like in a spaceship?" Gwen asked. She'd read the files on the Sycorax invasion and the subsequent cleanup. Was it possible there'd been escape pods that Torchwood didn't know about?

But Petal shook her head, staring at a spot on the tabletop. "That's what I thought, but then Trev talked me into having a look, and after I made a new hat, I went out and saw for myself. And no, no ship. Just him, all smashed into the tomato patch, looking like this." She tapped the photo.

"Dead?" Gwen supposed.

Petal took a deep breath.

-o0o-

"Oh my god, it's a...a..." Petal looked over Trev's shoulder at the figure lying face-down in the moist earth and searched for words. It wasn't often she found a compelling reason to leave the house, but if the prospect of having solid proof that her beliefs were real literally plop into her back garden wasn't reason enough, then what was? For a moment she could even beat back the claustrophobic panic caused at the sight of the gigantic ship overhead. Selfishly, though, she found her thrill diminish when she saw the "alien" looked mostly like a person and was clad in obviously once-elegant robes. It could have easily been a man in fancy dress, to be honest.

"Where's his skin gone?" Trevor wondered.

Petal swallowed. Indeed, the figure's head looked like it was stripped down to the muscle and bone. It glistened wetly where a constellation of fine cracks criss-crossed the skull. The hand looked similarly denuded. "Don't look very alien to me, actually," she murmured, counting the correct number of fingers and visible appendages as for a human.

"Fine time to turn sceptic," Trevor snapped. "We should call someone."

Suddenly, there emanated from the strange figure a low, gurgling growl that sent the hairs on Petal's arms and neck standing straight. She stared at Trev, and he stared back at her. Then, together, they both turned to stare at the figure at their feet. Its fingers moved, its back heaved, and it gurgle-growled again. Then, with a growl of tremendous pain and effort, the man-alien-thing started to get up.

Petal shrieked and cowed behind Trevor, who picked up the long-neglected garden rake at his feet and brandished it as a weapon. The man-alien continued to grunt and gasp laboriously as it climbed to its feet. One of its arms hung limply from an obviously dislocated shoulder. With its good arm, it grabbed onto the dilapidated lattice and got its feet under itself.

"H-hey there, all right, m-mate?" Trevor asked.

Petal hugged his shaking legs tightly and watched as the thing staggered around to face them. She squeaked, Trevor dropped the rake, and the hideous, inhuman monster before them groaned, shuddered, and collapsed.

Petal waited and watched, but the monster lay still, quietly gurgling. She couldn't believe it. It was an alien. An honest-to-goodness extraterrestrial life form from space. They existed. They really, honestly existed for real, just as she'd always believed they did. Releasing Trevor's legs, Petal found herself drawn to the prone figure in wonder.

"Petal, keep back!" Trevor warned, grabbing at her sleeve.

She brushed him off and crept towards the crumpled mass of flesh and fabric. "Oh my god, Trev, it's an alien. It really is."

"You see those teeth?" Trevor exclaimed from behind her.

Petal knelt by the creature and reached for its collar, noticing the ornamental bits of bone and treated hide stitched to the burgundy fabric. Giant spaceship, but bone and leather ornaments? Petal's mind strained at the vast expanse of possibilities that an alien culture presented. "Wow," she breathed.

"Petal, what are you doing? Is it dead?"

Suddenly, the sky roared. Petal looked up and watched in amazement as the huge spaceship unexpectedly took off towards the heavens. Almost as fast as she could blink, the massive floating continent that had been shading the whole of London was naught but a mere, shrinking black dot in the expanse of clear blue sky.

"Oh my god, they've left," Trevor said. "How'd…?"

"Dunno," Petal agreed, staring, mouth agape. The ship was completely gone now. She looked back down at the alien. She waited, and watched. But nothing happened. No teleport or anything. She looked back at the empty sky. "And they've left him." A shiver raced over her spine. Then she noticed how moist its face had become. It appeared to be bleeding some kind of clear fluid out of all the cracks in its face and head. Petal found her heart going out to the thing. She rested a hand on its chest, felt it rise and fall. It was still alive. Alive, wounded, and now abandoned on an alien planet.

"Is it dead?" Trevor asked, leaning over her.

"No. Poor alien, it's still alive."

"Poor _alien_? Petal—!"

She was about to turn and irritably state her case, when a massive explosion interrupted her.

"Ack!" Trevor exclaimed, hitting the dirt.

Petal ducked, and squinted up at the second sun that had appeared in the sky. She could feel the earth trembling beneath her feet. "They're bombing us!" she shrieked, waiting for the blast of radiation that would end it all.


	4. Can I Keep Him?

"So he fell into your garden, and then you saw the spaceship blow up," Gwen summarized.

Petal nodded.

"So what did you do? You didn't call someone?" Gwen supposed, cocking an eyebrow.

Petal's eyes widened. "Course not! I know how you lot are. Shoot first and ask later."

Gwen was of a mind to protest, but held her tongue civilly. "So what, then?"

Petal hunched her shoulders a little more, as if ashamed. "Well, after the spaceship exploded, Trev and I sort of panicked." She shrugged. "You know, falling debris and radiation and all that, and here was this poor alien guy all smashed up and alive in our garden, so...so we brought him inside with us 'til we could figure out what to do with him."

Gwen let her jaw drop ever so slightly. "You took him in? Whatever for?"

-o0o-

"We should call somebody, Petal," Trevor insisted, pacing the floor nervously, staring at the groaning and gurgling life form that they'd dumped onto his bed.

Petal grabbed an armful of clean hand towels. The thing was oozing all over the place. "No! He's a living creature, not a spectacle."

"I meant like the police. The hospital. Don't we still have that number laying around to phone if you see an alien? Maybe it still works."

"Absolutely not!"

"He's an alien, Petal!"

"I know! And if those Men in Black or whoever get their hands on him, they'll cut him into little, tiny pieces and stuff him in specimen jars or something. They'd be cruel and official and wouldn't know the first thing to do with him."

"WE don't know the first thing to do with him! If it's even a HIM. I certainly can't tell," Trev said, eyeing the heaving mass of living pizza on his bed. It twitched, and he jerked back, startled. "He can't stay here, Petal. You realize that?"

"Where can he stay? We blew up his ship." Petal stared at Trev. "At the very least, we should keep him here 'til he's patched up some and can fend for himself. Show him that all humans aren't nasty and warlike and prone to blowing up other people's spaceships," she added obliquely, timidly patting more of the ooze off of the thing's head.

Trevor hovered in the doorway and watched her with an ill expression. "He's probably all smashed up inside and bleeding internally and god knows what else! He's probably dying, Petal," he added softly.

Petal hesitated. That had occurred to her, too, and for a moment she was tempted to let Trevor make the call. But there was no way she could trust anybody official to not report it. And she was all too aware of what would happen to him then. He'd disappear into some secret underground laboratory, and they'd be gagged, brainwashed or worse. Dying a free creature had to be better than living like that.

"Then he'll die free. Here. And then he'll be nobody's problem, will he?" Petal decided, shooting her brother a meaningful glare.

Trevor stepped into the room and leaned against the wall, hands in the pockets of his dressing gown. "I'm just trying to be a voice of reason here, Pet. This is over our heads. I mean, you've got no idea what you're getting us into."

Petal had realized that, too, and aside from the amazing coolness of having a real space alien round the house, she couldn't think of any really practical reasons for doing this. Looking down at the smashed face on Trev's pillow, Petal felt familiar stirrings of panic. But she felt something else, too, that she couldn't quite name. And whatever the feeling was, it was stronger than the panic, and telling her in no uncertain terms that THIS was worth taking a chance on. Petal had spent so much of her life living with the panic inside her that she wanted to get to know this new feeling a little more.

"No idea," she repeated softly. Then she looked at her brother. "Then we'll find it out together, won't we?"

"This is SUCH a bad idea," Trevor sighed reprovingly.

Petal thought she heard a note of resignation in his tone. "But he can stay?"

Terrance groaned, face in his hands. "Well, I don't have the energy to move him out again, so yeah."

Petal nodded, trying to contain her squeal of delight by sopping up more of the goo squelching out of the cracks on the alien's exoskeleton.

Trevor crossed his arms indignantly. "He tries to eat the neighbours or something, I'm blaming you."


End file.
